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In the early 1920s, the British archaeological excavator Ernest Mackay unearthed an unusual find. It was at the ancient Sumerian cemetery of Kish, in what is now Iraq’s Babil Governate. The object was an egg. The top third of it had been cut away, and the shell had been roughly smoothed, perhaps with a primitive sander. It appeared to have been used as a drinking cup. From the local language, Mackay’s team learned the bird was called gir-gid-da (“the long-legged bird”) or gam-gam (“the benefactor”). As the Kish expedition continued, more fragments of ostrich eggshells were found. This discovery caught the attention of the German anthropologist and sinologist Berthold Laufer (1874–1934).
Laufer’s 1926 work, Ostrich Egg-Shell Cups of Mesopotamia and the Ostrich in Ancient and Modern Times, is a detailed cultural history of these flightless birds and the cups made from their eggs. Laufer begins by observing that ostrich eggs were common in the ancient world. They were found in prehistoric tombs across Mycenae, Etruria, Latium, Carthage, and Egypt. Persians sent them as tribute to Chinese emperors. The Spartans reportedly safeguarded the ostrich-sized egg that Leda laid, from which the mythical twins Castor and Pollux hatched. The Garamantes people of North Africa collected the eggs. Arabic poetry praised them. Egyptian pharaohs ate them and wore the bird’s feathers in their hair.
Laufer organizes his study by region and historical period. He starts with Palestine, Syria, and Arabia. In the Hebrew Bible, books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy class the ostrich as an unclean animal. However, the Numidians of North Africa enjoyed feasting on it. Laufer even cites a Dr. Duncan from the Department of Agriculture, who suggested his contemporaries try ostrich “as a New Year or Easter bird.” In Hebrew, the ostrich was once called bath haya’anah (“daughter of the desert”). Arabic speakers used a similar name, calling the bird the desert’s father. They also called it the magician, the strong one, the fugitive, the stupid one, and the gray one.
While writing his treatise, Laufer found plenty of ostrich feathers in the markets of Aleppo, Damascus, and Smyrna. He also recorded an Islamic legend he heard about why the ostrich has such small, useless wings. The story said the ostrich was competing with a bustard to fly close to the sun. The ostrich forgot to ask for Allah’s help before the flight. As a result, the sun scorched its wing feathers. This scorching affected the feathers of every generation of ostriches that followed.
Much of the enjoyment of Laufer’s book comes from the odd facts he presents in a scholarly way. Some facts are rather grim. For example, the Roman emperor Elagabalus (who ruled around 204–222 AD) is said to have served 600 ostrich heads at a single banquet. Another Roman, the usurper Firmus (who died in 375 AD), had an unusual health regimen. He reportedly ate an entire ostrich each day to stay well.
Other facts touch on strange beliefs. In 1579, the writer John Lyly noted that “the ostrich digesteth harde yron to preserve his heath.” William Shakespeare turned this idea into a threat in his play Henry VI: “I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich.” Sadly, the bird’s famous ability to digest iron, like its supposed power to hatch eggs just by looking at them, is likely just a myth.
Laufer’s research also covers East Asia. During China’s Tang dynasty, people called ostriches “camel birds.” Reports from that time said East Africans fed their ostrich flocks red-hot copper. In Sudan, the Shilluk and Baggara peoples successfully tamed ostriches, making them as docile as chickens.
Toward the end of his book, Laufer’s comparative anthropology shifts into what reads as a defense of colonialism. He contrasts what he calls the “barbarous treatment which the poor bird had hitherto received from the hands of African savages” with the work of Afrikaners (South Africans of European descent). He praises the Afrikaners for developing a method of domestication with “a charitable attitude and an enlightened method prompted by truly scientific research.”
His measure of success is based solely on economic exports. He notes that the South African ostrich feather industry increased its profits by 4,130 percent between 1865 and 1913.
Despite taking a broad, global view of history for most of the book, Laufer ends with a narrow conclusion. He positions Afrikaners as the main force for progress on the African continent. He writes: “Civilization, after all, advances: from a mercilessly persecuted and tormented creature we have transformed the ostrich into a happy and contented bird and an eminently useful denizen of our soil. The domestication of the ostrich is a positive contribution to the progress of humanity and humaneness, and may be designated one of the great achievements of modern civilization of which the Africander may justly be proud and for which we have every reason to be grateful to him.”